


Scar

by malinaldarose (coralysendria)



Category: Earth: Final Conflict
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Secret Identity, Trope Bingo Amnesty, Trope Bingo Round 14, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25049674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/pseuds/malinaldarose
Summary: With the Taelons gone, Col. Liam Kincaid has a new mission.  (Set early fifth season.)
Kudos: 2





	Scar

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the Undercover Missions square on my Trope Bingo card for Round 13 and is being posted for Round 14's Amnesty.

He missed his scar. It had been the defining feature of his face for the last six years, ever since he had taken that slice from a knife during the ambush in Taiwan. His jaw clenched as he remembered the day and the screams everywhere, his own among them. The scar, which had bisected his eyebrow, jumped his eye and continued down his cheek nearly to his jawline, had been smoothed away using a Taelon technique -- ironic, given Operation Dark Knight's anti-alien mandate. No sign of it remained, not even an out of place hair in his eyebrow. It was as if it had never happened.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. It felt, in some ways, like the intervening years had been erased along with the scar, like he would walk out the door of his quarters and find himself back in the war, under William Boone's command. But no. That war was over; Boone was dead. With the medical advances brought by the Taelons, he had had no real reason to keep the scar, except perhaps as a personal reminder that just because his superiors assured him of something, it didn't mean they were right, and that he should keep his eyes open and trust his own judgement. 

It was necessary, though. The scar was too memorable, and this mission was too important for him to trust it to someone else; this intel, he needed to gather personally. And so Colonel Liam Kincaid, who had been above ground only once in the last six years -- to meet with the Resistance leader who had been using his identity -- was himself taking on a new persona. Lieutenant Brenton Michaels would be meeting later with Renee Palmer, formerly CEO of Doors Industries, to see if he could find out the truth of the wild claims she had been making since the disappearance of the Taelons and the aforementioned Major Kincaid.

Palmer had been present at the eruption of Mount Karmenikov where the remaining Taelons and Major Kincaid -- and it still rankled that he did not know the man's true identity -- had apparently perished. She had poured millions of dollars of Doors International funds into searching for the major, believing that whatever Taelon chamber he had been in at the time of the eruption had been ejected from the volcano like a cork from a particularly large champagne bottle.

Rumor had it that she had found the chamber.

Rumor also said that there had been something else in the chamber, something that had been released when she opened it.

No one really believed it, though. The Doors board had fired Palmer over her supposed obsession. The ANA, which had employed her as an agent, refused to believe that there could be another alien menace following on the heels of the Taelons. They wanted to believe that the threat was gone and that Earth could get back to business as usual. There were already rumors of unrest growing along borders where there had been nothing but peace for years.

His superiors, at least, still believed that there was a place for Operation Dark Knight, so his command had not been dissolved after confirmation was received that the Mothership was empty. They were still underground, and would remain underground. If these Atavus that Palmer kept talking about existed, then ODK would take up the fight -- it was their purpose, after all.

Colonel Kincaid stared into the mirror, straightened his tie, brushed a finger over the single silver bar on his shoulder, and nodded.

"Nice to meet you, Lieutenant Michaels," he said to his reflection, then turned off the lights and headed out.

**Author's Note:**

> It took me a while to realize that Col. Kincaid and Lt. Michaels (later Capt. Michaels) were played by the same actor, but once I did, this sort of fell out of my fingers.


End file.
